Steve Persall

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Tampa Bay Times
For 1,125 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 65% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 33% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 1.5 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Steve Persall's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 67
Highest review score: 100 Vertigo
Lowest review score: 0 The Last Airbender
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 708 out of 1125
  2. Mixed: 310 out of 1125
  3. Negative: 107 out of 1125
1125 movie reviews
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    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Steve Persall
    Steve Jobs
    Danny Boyle's movie is meticulously crafted to artful specifications, written in Aaron Sorkin's torrential style and acted to perfection by a superb ensemble. Yet like Jobs' NeXT Cube in 1988, there's one obvious question that isn't satisfactorily answered: What does it do?
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Steve Persall
    The Age of Adaline
    Like its heroine, The Age of Adaline is afraid of its emotions, and stuck flat-footed in time.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Steve Persall
    Isle of Dogs
    Free to create practically any whim, Anderson requires a bit too much narratively of himself and brainstorming buddies Jason Schwartzman and Roman Coppola. Their plot scrambles keeping pace with inspiration, eventually surrendering to commotion and holding on for dear clarity.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Persall
    Captain Phillips
    At this point in his celebrated career, there shouldn't be much new that Hanks can show us. But there is, as the actor reaches deep inside to express the relief of dodging death as I've never seen it played before. He's in shock; we're awed.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 83 Steve Persall
    Snitch
    Snitch is grittily streetwise, and until its last 20 minutes fairly credible compared to other movies "inspired by" true stories.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Persall
    Sicario
    Sicario is a tentacled drug cartel thriller grabbing viewers by the throat and squeezing for two hours. This movie continually defies the conventions of its genre, from its hero's gender to the vagueness of its morality.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Steve Persall
    Another Year
    I'm not sure there's anything else to take away from this film besides Manville's performance and gratitude that we aren't these people.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Persall
    Blade Runner 2049
    Villeneuve crafts a movie both cerebral and sensuous, as puzzling and visually striking as its predecessor. The experience should be likewise revered by next generations.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Steve Persall
    Wadjda
    The easiest way for filmmakers to show injustice in the world is through the eyes of a child. In the case of Haifaa al-Mansour's movie, the injustice is Saudi Arabia's male-centric culture, and the child is a preteen girl named Wadjda.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Persall
    Fresh
    Nelson's is one of the year's best performances in nothing less than one of the year's best films. [23 Sep 1994, p.2]
    • Tampa Bay Times
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Persall
    Arrival
    It's one of a handful of movies that have legitimately fooled me; not with an abrupt twist but a dawning awareness of where it's going thematically, how deeply and how distanced from sci-fi as usual.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Persall
    Blue Valentine
    Sounds depressing, but Blue Valentine is a reminder that well-measured and expertly acted pain is as thrilling to watch as 3-D spectacle.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Persall
    Top Five
    Top Five is the funniest movie I've seen this year, and the calendar's running out. No matter whose movie Rock's resembles, it is completely his, and a brash start to being taken seriously as an artist.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 50 Steve Persall
    Coco
    It’s so respectful that vibrancy suffers. Coco is a bright pinata of a movie that breaks and nothing falls out.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Steve Persall
    Bridge of Spies
    Bridge of Spies is solid work but feels like Spielberg's best intentions as a filmmaker and world conscience on cruise control.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Steve Persall
    Shaun the Sheep Movie
    The stop-motion technique never ceases to fascinate, but the episodic structure of Shaun the Sheep Movie hinders any true emotional buildup and payoff.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Persall
    Foxcatcher
    Miller unravels this story with the grim inevitability of a death row vigil, but not without flashes of sly humor.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Steve Persall
    Jackie
    Anchored by Natalie Portman's uncanny impersonation — wispy voice, aristocratic posture — Jackie fascinates and frustrates, sometimes at once. We can't be certain any of her actions here are true. Some don't seem likely.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Steve Persall
    No
    The movie needs one or two central characters directly affected by the dictatorship, in order to create more tension around a conclusion that's already known.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Persall
    Pacific Rim
    Pacific Rim gives big, dumb and loud an exemplary name and summer audiences something to cheer.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Persall
    The Wedding Banquet
    More touching than daring, The Wedding Banquet is an exquisite comedy, brimming with simple human decency and more belly laughs than any comedy I've seen this year. [15 Oct 1993, p.4]
    • Tampa Bay Times
    • 81 Metascore
    • 50 Steve Persall
    The Big Short
    McKay's frustration about the financial crisis is obvious, his instinct of how to engage viewers less so. Buyer beware.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Steve Persall
    Moana
    We can now agree that Johnson is not only the Sexiest Man Alive but also our strongest, lifting Moana on his character's beefy shoulders, carrying it like other hits before. No movie left behind.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Persall
    Skyfall
    The movie's assured direction by Sam Mendes can't be underestimated.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Steve Persall
    A Fantastic Woman
    Director and co-writer Sebastian Lelio keeps the melodrama muted, allowing Vega’s expressive passivity to move viewers. She’s a tragically striking character, a face of abruptly lost love seldom seen in movies.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 25 Steve Persall
    Melancholia
    By the time Melancholia finally crawls to its conclusion, his (von Trier) round orb in the sky isn't as depressing as the rectangular screen.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Persall
    Midnight in Paris
    Allen eventually gets to the heart of this matter: the allure and danger of nostalgia.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Persall
    The World's End
    What "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz" did for zombie and cop flicks The World's End does for sci-fi fatalism, respecting its doomsday tropes while presenting them with cheeky wit and a refreshing strategy of sensory underload.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 91 Steve Persall
    Flight
    Exhilarating drama, and a triumphant return to glory for both Zemeckis and Washington.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Steve Persall
    Silver Linings Playbook
    Silver Linings Playbook is a bracing shaken cocktail of awkward failure and accidental success, with Pat and Tiffany making a refreshing and unlikely couple to root for. We just want them to be abnormal together, share their favorite antidepressants, maybe even dance to Stevie Wonder.
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